Of all the ingredients that tend to emerge only during the holidays – turkey, cranberries, fried onions from a can – the one I come across most frequently in restaurants is arguably the weirdest: pumpkin.

We’re introduced to it when we’re barely old enough to speak, an object to mutilate, and at that age pumpkin smells like something you would never want to eat. I recall my introduction to pumpkin pie as the first time I was consciously repulsed.

But I’ve grown to crave it, particularly in savory forms. This pumpkin bisque would be getting a test run at our house if we weren’t going to be away for the balance of the season, as would a lot of the recipes in the chapter devoted to winter squash in Sheri Castle’s “The New Southern Garden Cookbook.”

I’ve instead gotten my pumpkin fill at restaurants around town. Tableau chef Ben Thibodeaux uses it as the basis of a soup similar to gumbo. A recent brunch at Patois brought pumpkin butter, which we spread on that restaurant’s signature warm brioche rolls, as well as an amazing bisque of crab and pumpkin-like butternut squash. There are toasted pumpkin seeds hidden amongst the seasonal greens and Basque blue cheese in a salad at Marti’s. In October, Clancy’s kitchen was dusting speckled trout with “flour” made from pumpkin seeds for a special meuniere.

The new menu at Ste. Marie, a contender for the most improved restaurant in town, includes golden toasted gnocchi nestled in pumpkin-enriched mascarpone. Finished with sage brown butter, it tasted as fully of the season as a meatless dish possibly could.

There are a lot of pumpkin desserts out there, as you might expect. Domenica ran a pumpkin budino special during Thanksgiving. Its sister restaurant, Besh Steak, was still serving a pumpkin cheesecake last week, gilded with cranberries and ginger cookies.

Noodle & Pie may be the most pumpkin-y New Orleans restaurant of the moment.

Its dessert menu is intensely seasonal: peppermint flavored chocolate pie, eggnog chiffon with a firm, cookie-like gingersnap crust. The satsuma pumpkin pie is creamy and, befitting a dessert built from a vegetable, not overly sweet.

It was the best dessert I tried last week even if it wasn’t my favorite pumpkin dish at Noodle & Pie. That was a savory dish of cayenne rice dumplings (imagine hush puppies ordered from a dim sum cart) and simmered cubes of pumpkin. The Asian-themed creation was the perfect starch ballast to complement an order of sticky spare ribs or Korean fried chicken. Donald Link, who happened to be eating dinner at Noodle & Pie when we walked in, recommended the latter.